Troilus and
Cressida is classified as a tragedy, but
who suffers the tragedy is
arguable. Although callow Troilus loses his
love, he fails to realize
she was a wanton to begin with. Moreover, he
does not die or experience
a moment of epiphany. Hector dies, but he is
neither a title character
nor a character whose psyche and personality
undergo thorough
examination. Fickle Cressida, forcibly
separated from Troilus, does not
resist the Greeks. In fact, she welcomes their
attentions, in
particular those of Diomedes. She is anything
but tragically
heroic.

One may fairly argue that the
real tragedy in the play
lies in the major characters' ignorance of who
they are and what spurs
them to action. Troilus, Cressida, Achilles,
Ajax, Paris, et al., are
blind to their faults and fail to learn from
the mistakes they make.
True, Hector ends the duel with Ajax shortly
after it begins, for he
realizes the folly of fighting with a
relative. But he later challenges
Achilles, not understanding the larger truth
that all men come from the
same human family.

But not only do the characters
fail to understand
themselves; they also fail to understand (or
they wish to ignore) the
significance of a key event as it unfolds: the
surrender of Cressida to
the Greeks in exchange for the captive Trojan
Antenor. This development
evens the score: The Greek Diomedes has the
Trojan Cressida, the Trojan
Paris has the Greek Helen, and the Trojan
Troilus and the Greek
Menelaus are cuckolds. In other words, the
cause of the war, the
abduction of Helen by Paris, has been negated
by the surrender of
Cressida to Diomedes.

However, the war goes on—for
pride, for glory, for
lasting fame.

Key Dates

Date Written: 1602. Publication:
1623 as part of the First
Folio, the first authorized collection
of
Shakespeare's plays.

Sources

The main sources for the play
were accounts of the Trojan
War from Greek myths; from Homer's epic poem,
The Iliad; and
from Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and
Criseyde.

Setting

City of Troy and
surrounding plains in northwestern Anatolia, a
region in the Asia Minor
that is part of modern-day Turkey. The action
takes place in Troy and
the Greek camp outside the walls of Troy.
Anatolia is west of Greece
(across the Aegean Sea) and north of Egypt
(across the Mediterranean
Sea). The time is about 3,200 years ago in
recorded history's infancy.

Characters

Troilus:
Youngest son of Priam, king of Troy, and therefore
a prince of the
realm. He is the brother of Paris, Hector,
Deiphobus, Helenus,
Margarelon. Troilus is hopelessly in love with the
Trojan maid Cressida.Cressida:
Daughter of the soothsayer Calchas. Troilus
successfully woos her but
discovers later that she is fickle and lascivious.Pandarus:
Uncle of Cressida. He helps the lovesick Troilus
woo her with his
wheedling tongue.Priam:
King
of Troy. Hector:
Son
of Priam and the greatest of the Trojan warriors.Paris:
Son
of Priam. It was Paris who caused the Trojan War
by stealing Helen, the
wife of the Greek king Menelaus.Deiphobus,
Helenus,
Margarelon: Other sons of Priam. Margarelon
is an
illegitimate son. Achilles:
Greatest of the Greek warriors and the greatest
warrior in all the
world. However, Shakespeare depicts this hero of
Homer's Iliad
as proud, sulking, and small-minded.Aeneas,
Antenor:
Trojan commanders.Calchas:
Trojan priest of Apollo (prophet or
soothsayer) who defects to the Greeks. He is the
father of Calchas.Agamemnon:
Commander-in-chief of the Greek armies. He is
depicted as being
incompetent.Menelaus:
Brother of Agamemnon and cuckolded husband of
Helen of Troy.Helen:
Wife
of Menelaus who absconded with Paris.Ulysses,
Nestor: Greek
officers.Patroclus:
Greek warrior who engages in a homosexual
relationship with
Achilles. Ajax:
Gigantic Greek warrior whom Shakespeare depicts as
proud but brainless.Diomedes:
Greek warrior who wins Cressida from Troilus.Thersites:
Greek slave. With bitter sarcasm, he continually
criticizes Ajax,
Achilles, and other combatants. Thersites
understands the folly of war
and well knows that its glory-seeking combatants
are small and
stupid. Alexander:
Servant of Cressida.Boy
Servant of
TroilusServant
of ParisServant
of
Diomedes Andromache:
Wife of Hector.Cassandra:
Daughter of Priam. She is a prophetess.Minor
Characters:
Trojan and Greek soldiers, attendants.

Background From Greek Mythology.In the ancient Mediterranean
world, feminine beauty
reaches its zenith in Helen, wife of King
Menelaus of Greece. Her
wondrous face invades every man's dream,
including a young Trojan named
Paris. He decides one day that he has to make
her his own. So, with the
help of his Trojan friends, he kidnaps Helen
and takes her to Troy (in
present-day Turkey). Infuriated, King Menelaus
and his brother,
Agamemnon, assemble a mighty army of which
Agamemnon is supreme
commander and cross the sea to make war
against Troy and reclaim Helen
and Greek pride. The great Greek storyteller
Homer told part of the
tale of the Trojan War in The Iliad,
depicting the warriors on
both sides—Achilles, Hector, Ajax the Great,
Menelaus, Diomedes and
Odysseus (Ulysses in Shakespeare's play)—as
heroes worthy of imitation.
In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare
depicts them as quite
human, even bumbling, petty, and stupid. Some
of them are morally
corrupt. Shakespeare's version of the story
begins at the end of the
seventh year of the Trojan War. The plot
summary follows.

When
Pandarus next speaks with Cressida, he heaps
lavish praise on Troilus
in hopes of winning her for Troilus. With
unabashed exaggeration—in
fact, outright lies—he tells her that Troilus as
a warrior is superior
to Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors.
What is more, he says,
Helen—the incomparably beautiful paramour of
Paris, the brother of
Hector—desires Troilus even more than she
desires Paris, who brought
her to Troy from Greece. When Troilus returns
one day from battle,
Pandarus, tells her: “[L]ook you how his sword
is bloodied, and his
helm more hacked than Hector’s; and how he
looks, and how he goes! O
admirable youth!” (1.2.143). But Cressida plays
hard to get, believing
that “Men prize the thing ungained . . .”
(1.2.175).

Meanwhile,
out on the plain before the walls of Troy, the
Greeks argue among
themselves about how to end the long and weary
war. Achilles, their
fiercest warrior, could be the key. He is
Hercules, Sir Lancelot, and
Rambo all wrapped up in one. But when the
leaders of the army hold an
important strategy meeting to plan their next
move, the great Achilles
refuses to attend. In fact, he refuses to resume
fighting. Shakespeare
does not go into detail about why Achilles has
withdrawn from battle,
but Homer’s
Iliad—well known to Shakespeare’s
audiences—makes it clear that
Agamemnon, the general of the Greek armies,
insulted him. Agamemnon
further offended him when he took for himself a
beautiful slave girl
Achilles had captured when raiding locales
around Troy. To spite
Agamemnon, Achilles keeps to his tent, sitting
back and wallowing in
his greatness, all the while laughing at his
bickering comrades.

Hector,
the greatest of the Trojan warriors and the
brother of Troilus, sends a
message to the Greek camp, proposing to fight in
single combat the best
and bravest Greek warrior (who is, of course,
Achilles). However, irked
by Achilles’s arrogance, Nestor, a Greek
commander, recommends snubbing
Achilles in favor of sending a warrior named
Ajax into battle against
Hector. Ajax is big and powerful and menacing.
He is also brainless.
When he learns that he is to fight Hector, he
swells with pride.
Thersites, a cynical Greek slave with a
sarcastic tongue, tells
Achilles that Ajax is so blown up with pride
that he paces about the
field of battle and “raves in saying nothing”
(3.3.261). This news
spurs Achilles to consider returning to combat;
he cannot allow the
witless Ajax and other warriors to reap all the
glory when he knows he
is the greatest warrior of all. Later, Ulysses
further whets Achilles’s
appetite for battle.

However,
the Trojans are now rethinking the war and
wondering whether it is
worth continuing. All they need to do to end it
is release Helen to
Menelaus, the Greek king from whom Paris stole
Helen. Troilus argues,
though, that the Greeks have spilled too much
blood and suffered too
many broken bones to quit now. Besides, he says,
honor is at stake. His
argument prevails. But Troilus not only wins the
argument; he also wins
Cressida, thanks to Pandarus. She reveals her
love for him and vows
fidelity.

But
Cressida’s father, Calchas, a Trojan prophet of
Apollo, is less than
faithful; for he defects to the Greek camp. Then
he proposes an
exchange: his daughter, Cressida, for a Trojan,
Antenor, a prisoner of
the Greeks. The Trojans accept the terms of the
agreement. After
Cressida spends her last night in Troy with
Troilus, the Greek warrior
Diomedes (also called Diomed) arrives to take
her to the Greek camp.
The moment he sees Cressida, her beauty and
charm captivate him. He
tells her:

The lustre in
your eye, heaven in your cheek, Pleads your fair usage; and to
Diomed You shall be mistress, and
command him wholly. (4.4.121-123)

Troilus,
seized with jealousy, tells Diomedes to treat
her well or “I’ll cut thy
throat” (4.4.132). Upon arriving in the Greek
camp, Cressida seems
delighted with her captors and their attentions,
and she kisses the
Greek commanders one after the other. After she
goes off with Diomedes,
Ulysses, realizing that she is a wanton,
comments:

Fie, fie upon
her! There’s language in her eye, her
cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton
spirits look out At every joint and motive of her
body. (4.5.66-69)

Hector
then meets Ajax in what is to be the battle of
battles while other
Greek and Trojan warriors become spectators.
But, ho-hum, the duel ends
in a draw after Hector declares that Ajax is a
kinsman (in the
following lines, cousin-german means close
relative), noting:

The
great Achilles, having decided that it will be
he who slays Hector and
turns the tide of battle, then invites Hector to
a feast in his tent,
saying, “To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as
death; / To-night all
friends” (4. 5. 299). Agamemnon retires to his
tent with other Greek
leaders after making Hector feel welcome.

Meanwhile,
Troilus enters the Greek camp during the pause
in hostilities to seek
out Cressida. At the same time, Achilles is
boasting to his young
friend and sleeping companion, Patroclus
(Achilles is equally fond of
young men as well as young women, like the one
Agamemnon took from him)
about the prowess he will exhibit when he
returns to war and confronts
Hector. The slave Thersites happens by with a
letter for Achilles and
allows his acerbic tongue to wag freely. He
accuses Patroclus of being
Achilles’s “masculine whore” (5.1.18). Insults
are exchanged. Elsewhere,
when Troilus finds Cressida, she is enveloped in
the arms of Diomedes.
She gives Diomedes a gift that she had received
from Troilus. When
Diomedes asks who gave it to her, she replies, “
‘Twas one’s that loved
me better than you will. / But, now you have it,
take it”
(5.2.106-107). The next day, Achilles goes
to war, enraged that
Hector has killed Patroclus on the field of
battle. However, there is
no exciting duel with Hector mano a mano.
Rather, Achilles and his
warriors fall upon Hector while the latter
catches his breath after
removing his helmet and setting his shield
aside. After they kill him,
Achilles drags Hector’s body around the city
walls. And what of
Troilus? He loses his horse to Cressida’s
lover. .Afterword.Shakespeare's
play ends there. There are no real heroes to
lionize; there is no
exciting climax. Of course, Homer and other
Greek writers had continued
the story, as follows: After the fighting
produces no clear victor and
the war comes to a standstill, the wily Ulysses
devises and constructs
a gigantic horse and hides a small army of
soldiers in its belly. Then,
pretending they are leaving the field of battle,
the Greeks present the
horse to the Trojans as a gift. After the
Trojans bring the horse
inside Troy, the Greek soldiers drop down from
the belly of the horse
at night, when all of Troy is asleep, and lay
waste the city. The
Greeks win the war. After they return home, a
surviving Trojan warrior,
Aeneas, leaves Troy and settles in Italy, where
he founds the city of
Rome, as Vergil tells us in his great epic, The
Aeneid.

Ignorance breeds mediocrity.
The central characters
in the play do not understand themselves and
do not learn from their
mistakes. Consequently, they do not grow or
change radically; they
remain small and mediocre. Love
is blind. Troilus falls in love with
Cressida without due heed to
her faults. Fame
and glory are false gods. The Greeks and
Trojans kill for glory,
bragging rights, and eternal fame—false gods
that entice them onto the
path of self-destruction.It
is folly to fight a war for a trivial reason.
The Greeks and
Trojans went to war after Paris took Helen
from King Menelaus, bruising
Greek pride and honor. After seven years of
war, the combatants
stubbornly continue to fight.Appearances
are deceiving. Outwardly, Cressida and
Helen are beautiful and
charming; the various warriors, handsome and
mighty. Inwardly, they are
all ugly, spiteful, weak, and/or
depraved.

Plot Structure

The
plot centers on a love story
(involving Troilus, Cressida, Pandarus, and
Diomedes) and a war story
(involving Achilles, Agamemnon, Ajax, Hector,
and other soldiers).
Three events interweave the two stories: the
defection of Calchas to
the Greeks, the agreement to exchange Cressida
for Antenor, and
Hector's proposal to fight a Greek warrior one
on one. Thersites and
Ulysses comment on the action—Ulysses with
eloquence and Thersites with invective that
points out the shortcomings
of the so-called heroes.

Anticlimaxes

There
is no high point in Troilus
and Cressida; nor is there a surprising or
shocking twist or turn.
Each time the play approaches what promises to
be a climactic moment—for
example, Troilus's confrontation with
Diomedes upon the departure of Cressida to the
Greek camp, Hector's
fight with Ajax, Cressida's reception in the
Greek camp, the Act 5
showdown between Achilles and Hector—the
moment ends in anticlimax. Cressida willingly
becomes the mistress of
Diomedes, Hector and Ajax fight to a draw,
Cressida welcomes the
attention of the Greeks, and Achilles waylays
Hector with the help of
fellow Greeks when Hector is unarmed and
resting.

Role of Thersites

Thersites is a
slave who runs errands for the Greek warriors.
Ironically, this lowly
fellow is the one character in the play who
well understands the folly
of the war and the inanity of its
participants. Shakespeare makes him
the conscience of the play—a sharp-tongued,
often sarcastic conscience.
Time and again, he openly insults the other
characters. But his
characterization of them as incompetents and
nincompoops is generally
accurate. In the presence of Ajax, he tells
Achilles that Ajax's “pia
mater is not worth the ninth part of a
sparrow” (2.1.47) and that he
“wears his wit in his belly and his guts in
his head” (2.1.47). Then he
turns on Achilles, telling him that “a great
deal of your wit, too,
lies in your sinews . . .” (2.1 66). Thersites reserves his most
searing insults for
Patroclus, who engages in a homosexual
relationship with Achilles. Here
is the conversation in which Thersites
lambastes
Patroclus:

THERSITES:..Prithee,
be
silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk:thou art thought to be Achilles'
male varlet.PATROCLUS:..Male
varlet,
you rogue! what's that?THERSITES:..Why,
his
masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping,
ruptures, catarrhs,loads o' gravel i' the back,
lethargies, coldpalsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten
livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of
imposthume, sciaticas,limekilns i' the palm, incurable
bone-ache, and therivelled fee-simple of the
tetter, take and takeagain such preposterous
discoveries!PATROCLUS:..Why
thou
damnable box of envy, thou, what meanestthou to curse thus?THERSITES:..Do
I curse thee?PATROCLUS:...Why
no, you ruinous butt, you whoresonindistinguishable cur, no.THERSITES:...No!
why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk,
thou green sarcenetflap for a sore eye, thou tassel
of a prodigal'spurse, thou? Ah, how the poor
world is pestered with such waterflies, diminutives
of nature! (5.1.16-22)

.Black Comedy,
Problem Play

Because of its
cynicism and mocking tone—as well as its
depiction of legendary Greek
heroes as stupid, petty, incompetent, or
fickle—Troilus and Cressida
resembles a dark comedy. This play is also
classified as one of three
of Shakespeare's "problem plays" (along
with Measure for
Measure and All's Well That Ends
Well) because of its
presentation of heroes who are seriously
flawed. Audiences used to
applauding and identifying with admirable
heroes and heroines find it
difficult to applaud or identify with the
flawed characters in Troilus
and Cressida.

Epigrams

In
the dialogue of Troilus and
Cressida and other Shakespeare plays,
characters sometimes speak
wise or witty sayings, or epigrams, couched in
memorable language.
Among the more memorable sayings in Troilus and
Cressida are the
following:

Words
pay no debts. (3.2.40)Pandarus
uses a
metaphor to compare words to a kind of
currency, but the currency does
not pay debts.

To
fear the worst oft cures the
worse. (3.2.47)Cressida
uses a
paradox to say a fear neutralizes the object
of the fear.

To
be wise, and
love, Exceeds
man’s
might; that dwells with gods above.
(3.2.102-103)Cressida
speaks
a couplet that uses alliteration (man’s
might).

For
honour
travels in a strait so narrow, Where
one but goes
abreast. (3.3.163-164)Ulysses
uses a
metaphor comparing honour to a sea traveler
passing through a strait (a
narrow waterway connecting two oceans,
gulfs, bays, or other large
bodies of water). He also uses a paradox
saying that the strait is so
narrow that only one person can swim
abreast. But abreast refers to two
or more people proceeding side by side.

You
do as
chapmen do, Dispraise
the
thing that you desire to buy. (4.1.82-83)In
a paradox,
Paris describes what shoppers sometimes do
when bargaining with a
merchant (chapman): They belittle the object
they want to buy to get
the chapman to lower the price.

Figures of Speech

Following
are examples of figures of
speech in the play. For definitions of figures
of speech, see Literary
Terms.

Alliteration

The
sea being smooth, How many shallow
bauble boats dare sail Upon
her patient
breast,
making their way With
those of nobler
bulk!
(1.3.36-39)

Were
it a casque
compos’d
by Vulcan’s
skill, My
sword should bite
it. (5.2.196-197)

Anaphora

Pour’st
in the
open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her
hair, her
cheek, her
gait, her
voice. (1.1.41-42)

If
there be one
among the fair’st of Greece That holds his
honour higher than his
ease, That seeks his
praise more than he fears
his peril, That knows his
valour, and knows not his
fear, That loves his
mistress more than in
confession, With
truant vows to
her own lips he loves, And
dare avow her
beauty and her worth In
other arms than
hers,—to him this challenge. (1.3.272-279)

If beauty have a
soul. this is not
she; If souls guide
vows, if
vows be sanctimony, If sanctimony be
the gods’ delight, If there be rule
in unity itself, This
is not she.
(5.2.164-168)

Hyperbole

But
I am weaker
than a woman’s tear (1.1.11)

Hyperbole
and
Metaphor

Her
hand, In
whose comparison
all whites are ink, Writing
their own
reproach. (1.1.43-45) Hyperbole:
Cressida's
hand is whiter than white.Metaphor:
Whites
are ink.

Metaphor

Agamemnon, Thou
great
commander, nerve and bone of Greece (1.3.57-58)Comparison
of
Agamemnon to nerve and bone

I
would thou
didst itch from head to foot, and I had the
scratching of thee; I
would make thee
the loathsomest scab of Greece (2.1.19)Thersites
compares
Ajax to a scab.

Mine
honour keeps
the weather of my fate. (5.3.32)Comparison
of
weather to the course of fate

Metaphor
and
Simile

The
strong-ribb’d
bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding
between the
two moist elements, Like
Perseus’
horse. (1.3.42-44)Metaphor:
Comparison
of sea waves to mountainsSimile:
Comparison
of the bark (boat) to a horse

Oxymoron

bad
success
(2.2.123)

Paradox

wound
of peace
(2.2.16)

O!
theft
most
base, That
we have stol’n
what we do fear to keep! (2.2.96-97)

Simile

He
[Ajax] is as
valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow
as the elephant.
(1.2.24)Comparison
of
Ajax to several animals

When
that the
general is not like the hive To
whom the foragers
shall all repair, What
honey is
expected? (1.3.84-86) Ulysses
implies
that Agamemnon (the general) should be like a
beehive.

Here’s
Agamemnon,
an honest fellow enough, and one that loves
quails, but he has not so
much brain as earwax. (5.1.36)Comparsion
of the
Agamemnon's intelligence to earwax

I
will no more
trust him when he leers than I will a serpent
when he hisses. (5.1.65)Comparison
of
Diomedes' trustfulness to that of a hissing
serpent

Allusions and References to Mythology

Because
Troilus and Cressida
unfolds in the age of Greek mythology,
Shakespeare frequently alludesto, or refers
directly to,
the deities and other nonhuman beings from Greek
myths. Among the
beings to whom or which Shakespeare alludes are
the following:

Apollo
(1.1.74): The sun god who daily drives his
chariot across the sky;
also, the god of music, prophecy, poetry,
medicine.Argus
(1.2.24): Giant with one hundred eyes who served
as a spy for Hera
(Roman name, Juno) queen of the Olympian gods.
The messenger god,
Hermes (Roman name, Mercury) killed him. Hera
removed his eyes and
placed them on the tail of the peacock.Arachne
(5.2.178): Young woman whom Athena, the goddess
of wisdom and war,
turned into a spider. Arachne (spelled by
Shakespeare as Ariachne)
had offended Athena by challenging her to a
weaving contest and then
making a magnicent tapestry, rivaling the
excellence of Athena's work.
Angry and jealous, Athena destroyed the
tapestry. Arachne then hanged
herself from a rope. Taking pity on the dead
girl, Athena turned the
rope into a cobweb and Arachne into a spider.Boreas
(1.3.40): God of the north wind.Briareus
(1.2.24): Monster with one hundred arms and
fifty heads.Cerberus
(2.1.21): Fierce, three-headed dog at the gate
of the Underworld.Cupid
(3.1.68): Roman name for Eros, the god of
love. Daphne
(1.1.74): Beautiful nymph (nature goddess)
pursued by Apollo. After she
refused his advances and prayed for deliverance,
her father, a river
god, changed her into a laurel tree.Diana
(5.2.109): Roman name for Artemis, the virginal
moon goddess.Juno
(1.2.81): Roman name for Hera,
queen of the Olympian gods.Jupiter
(1.2.45): Roman name for Zeus, king of the
Olympian gods.Mars
(5.3.62): Roman name for Ares, the god of war.Mercury
(2.2.48): Roman name for Hermes, the messenger
god.Neptune
(1.3.47): Roman name for Poseidon, god of the
sea.Niobe
(5.10.23): Woman who bragged to the goddess Leto
that she had six sons
and six daughters. Leto had only two children,
the god Apollo and the
goddess Diana (Artemis). Because of her
boastfulness, Apollo killed her
sons, Diana killed her daughters, and Jupiter
(Zeus) turned her into a
mass of stone on Mount Sipylus (in present-day
Turkey). The block of
stone cried tears ceaselessly as Niobe wept for
her dead children. Pegasus
(1.3.44): Winged horse of Perseus. It was born
from the blood of the
beheaded Medusa, a winged female with snakes as
the hair on her head.Perseus
(1.3.44): Hero who beheaded Medusa, one of three
sisters whose gaze
could turn a human into stone. Each sister's
hair was made of
intertwining snakes.Pluto
(4.4.130): Roman name for Hades, the god of the
Underworld.Proserpine
(2.1.21): Roman name for Persephone, the goddess
of the Underworld.Sagittary
(5.5.18): Sagittarius, the name of a centaur (a
creature that was
half-man and half-horse) that was changed into a
constellation of
stars. Before becoming a constellation, the
centaur was known as
Chiron. He assisted the Trojans in the war.Thetis
(1.3.41): Sea goddess who was the mother of
Achilles.Typhon
(1.3.163): Monster with one hundred dragon
heads.Venus
(3.1.26): Roman name for Aphrodite, goddess of
love. Vulcan
(1.3.171): Roman name for Hephaestus, the god of
fire and the forge who
made armor in his smithy on Mount Olympus.

Study
Questions and Essay Topics

1.
Which
character in the play is the most despicable?
Explain your answer. 2.
Are there any
admirable characters in the play? Explain your
answer.3.
Write an essay
that compares and contrasts Cressida’s concept
of love with Juliet
Capulet’s (Romeo and Juliet).4.
Write an essay
that compares and contrasts Shakespeare’s
depiction of the Greek and
Roman warriors with Homer’s depiction of them in
The Iliad.5.
Does Thersites
speak for Shakespeare? Explain your answer..